Today was the first run of the second week of marathon training so I got up at 06:30, before the others had gotten up and went out without making any noise. This time it was a very slow recovery run for what was supposed to be 25 minutes.

Instead of heading across the promenade and into the city I instead went east towards where the market was the day before. Sadly this route included a particularly steep hill that left me out of breath by the time I got to the top – not ideal for a recovery run, but at least it was slow paced. Once I got back the others got up and ready whilst I had a very quick shower.

After breakfast we then headed out to Portland. In previous years when we’ve been we’ve gone to Portland Bill for a picnic and headed back — it being all we usually have time for when travelling from Poole. This time we took our time and stopped for a while at a view point where we could look down over Chesil Beach. At this viewpoint they also have some olympic rings to commemorate the water sports being hosted there during the London 2012 olympic games.

Further along the path was a place we’d never been to before. Verne Citadel was constructed in 1860 to be a medium security prison for prisoners. For a time it was also used for coastal defence, but today it is once again a prison. It has two entrances, and the one we saw was a via bridge that led to a door into the side of the cliff face. It seemed kind of unusual, and I had no idea anything like this existed in the UK. To look at, it had the appearance of something that was a cross between an odd looking castle and a Hobbit hole (see The Lord of the Rings).

We then had a quick look around the Portland market and got some cake (instead of chocolate cake I went with flapjack – shock!), before continuing on to Portland Bill. Once we got there we started off with a cup of tea before going for a wander.

Myself and my Dad went off first, looking for butterflies, but we encountered what seems pretty usual — none of them seemed to keen on settling somewhere to be photographed. After this we climbed down the rocks with our cameras to take some pictures of the water crashing against the rocks near the MOD base.

We then took it in turns to climb Pulpit Rock. I went first, but didn’t get to the top though as I was unsure about the dampness of the rock and had to be careful of my arm after an accident a week previously.

My mum and sister joined us as I was descending the rock ready for my dad to climb it. Once he was back down we walked around the rocks for a while until my sister tripped and grazed her knee. We then walked up to the lighthouse and back to the car to have lunch.

I had my lunch as quickly as I could so I could find the time to go back to the lighthouse to see if I could go up it. It cost £4.00 for me to climb the steps to the top and to be fair it probably wasn’t worth it – but it was the first time I’ve ever been inside or up a lighthouse. For that it was worth the money.

On the way off Portland we stopped by the Church there. It’s built from Portland rock, the local rock which got used for a lot of buildings in London after the great fire. It’s quite an unusual church – it’s design is fairly unique, yet it’s still obvious what it is. Once inside I was then given a chance to ring the bell. It’s kind of weird as you have to try and get the right rhythm so that the rope stays taught.

When leaving Portland we did briefly stop off at the Castle, but it looked like it wouldn’t be worth looking around so we headed back to Weymouth. In Weymouth we parked up where the car boot had been in Preston, and went in the amusement arcade. Whilst they played on the 2p machines I got my Dad to have two games of air hockey with me. When he joined them I then had a go on House of the Dead 4 (which I was terrible at), and a couple of goes on a “grabber” that had Star Wars plushies in it.

After a quick walk around the beach we then headed back to the house for the evening meal and then spent the rest of the evening there.